


Penny, Like Lincoln

by GreenMatchStick



Category: Pennyverse
Genre: Awkwardness, Childhood, Coming of Age, F/M, First Kiss, Growing Up, Laughlin, Penny has her pink boots, Penny learns to arch uwu, Penny plays a lot of flute, Pink boots origin story pretty much, Rating for Language, UNEDITED SORRY, enjoy the fic, mention of recreational drugs and alcohol, okay ill stop rambling in the tags, parental dissapointment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29068599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenMatchStick/pseuds/GreenMatchStick
Summary: The Fitzgerald’s front door is gaping open, displays of poinsettias and white amaryllis spilling from the foyer. Penny sighs. Her mother is already perched on her father’s outstretched arm, and her brothers are checking themselves out in the car mirrors.“Shall we?” her father asks. Without waiting for an answer —it really was more of a suggestion than a question— the five make their way to the door. Penny delights in the clicking of their shoes against the stone steps to the door. Walking inside, the clicks are swallowed by murmuring voices and clinking glasses and gentle hummings of the violins and piano in the back of the large entry way. More of a hall, really.OR Penny goes to parties and kisses Geoffrey at one.
Relationships: Penny Banerjee/Geoffrey Reynold





	1. Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Oops I let it get away from me.

Penny thinks Midwinter parties are hell sent. The holiday itself is fine —nice even, with all the houses dressed in lights, and presents, and a conscious effort by everyone in the family to be pleasant for a few days— but the parties are hell. 

Penny’s at the age where she’s too old to be toted along with her parents and cooed at, but too young to follow her (significantly older) brothers around and talk politics and policy and ego-boosting. In other words, she’s eleven. Which is really saying that for the past couple years, and for the next few, she will be stuck at an awkward age and have nothing to do for hours and hours and hours. 

Too young to be properly jaded, Penny huffs in the back of her parent’s car on the way to another spawn-of-satan celebration. Her brothers, Austin and Alex, are riding in the car behind them, so she doesn’t even have any “important conversations” between the two of them to eavesdrop on. 

Perhaps the worst part of all of this is that Penny’s dress isn’t even pink. Her mother had sprung into her room yesterday, bearing a shopping bag overflowing with tissue paper and had tipped it over with vigor, exclaiming over how “wonderful” the contents would be for the Fitzgerald’s Midwinter party tomorrow. Penny’s interest was piqued: she might currently hate these parties, but she does like to dress up. She waited expectantly for the tissue paper to give way to some incredible—if frilly— pink article of clothing. To her horror, her mother unfolded and held up a dark green dress, smiling over “how nicely the color would compliment Penny’s eyes.” (Penny’s eyes are brown.) If Penny hadn’t had it drilled into her not to swear, and if she knew how to bluntly curse, she probably would’ve exclaimed “what the fuck?” She did not, though, and instead let her distaste show on her face because she is a child and doesn’t quite understand the art of masking emotions. 

And now here she is, sitting in the car in a depressing green dress, dolled up with a swipe of her mother’s gold eyeshadow across her eyelids, and some strappy and uncomfortable black flats. Out the window, the sun is setting and people’s Midwinter lights begin to flick on. Penny would come to resent parts of her wealthy upbringing later in life, but she’ll always like having been able to grow up around the grand old, brick houses with their extravagant yellow light displays. 

Soon, they roll up to the Fitzgerald’s gate, standing wide open and welcoming car after car of party goers. The trees lining the drive are covered in lights and as the road opens up to a circular driveway, they see the Fitzgerald's house outlined in lights. It’s perhaps a bit unbefitting to call the building a house, seeing as it's really more of a manor, a big estate that's been passed from Fitzgerald to Fitzgerald, some grand statue to old money and exploitation. But Penny doesn’t really think about any of that —can’t, really, for her age— and is content to watch the warm yellow lights glow brighter and brighter in the dying light. 

Penny’s father parks the car in the growing line around the edge of the circle and steps around the car to open Penny’s mother’s door. He also opens the back door for Penny, mocking the motion a chauffeur would do for some wealthy client at a red carpet; she giggles a bit. Behind them, Austin and Alex step out of their car, straightening their pressed suits. They look (in both the literal and figurative sense) sharp. 

The Fitzgerald’s front door is gaping open, displays of poinsettias and white amaryllis spilling from the foyer. Penny sighs. Her mother is already perched on her father’s outstretched arm, and her brothers are checking themselves out in the car mirrors.

“Shall we?” her father asks. Without waiting for an answer —it really was more of a suggestion than a question— the five make their way to the door. Penny delights in the clicking of their shoes against the stone steps to the door. Walking inside, the clicks are swallowed by murmuring voices and clinking glasses and gentle hummings of the violins and piano in the back of the large entry way. More of a hall, really. 

Penny’s parents and brothers are immediately offered champagne by a dwarf, and off they flit into the crowd. At this point, Penny has learned, it’s alright to follow her parents into the crowd; they’ll show off their daughter and tout her accomplishments and everyone will dote in a way that will make her feel younger than she is. Of course, then they’ll also talk of their own children Penny’s age and suddenly they will be talking to Penny as though she is a few years older and she’ll stand there and smile and take whatever hors d'oeuvres the waitstaff offers her with a smile that she can’t yet name as “practiced.” 

Her brothers, on the other hand, are not people who should be followed into this crowd. The young adults of Laughlin’s upper class, with their gossip circles and frequent dating changes are not the best companions for an eleven year old who is on the cusp of intuition. The alcoholics will be indulging on the flowing bubbles and open bar, the nicotine addicts will be in some hazy parlor; harder drugs are reserved for the grounds and for bathrooms, but they’ll happen nonetheless. 

The next hour is a relative blur. Penny and her parents talk to well dressed elves and half elves, business-dwarves with overly gelled hair, couples who’ve coordinated their looks down to their wristwatches and old gnomes with pocket watch chains dribbling out of their pockets. Penny’s parents have talked about how you can judge a person by their shoes, Penny looks at all their shoes but doesn’t know what any of them mean. One tiefling’s heels glitter so much Penny has to look away. She tells the same lines so many times that she doesn’t have to think before she speaks: “My favourite subject is astronomy.” “I play the flute,” “I enjoy reading,” “It was nice to meet you, too.”

As everyone empties glass after glass of champagne, and the tables in the room fill with drained cocktail glasses, the atmosphere becomes more liquid. The last of the quests have arrived and the air is perfumed, and rings clink against their wearers’ drink glasses. Penny is done with pleasantries. Her parents are content to catch up with people, and they have business deals to drag about and philanthropic work to humbly brag about, but Penny just has activities people think are cute, and a social standing that will complement that of their sons’. 

She makes her way out of the big entry hall through one of the many exit points, all lined with the red and white flowers. There’ve been enough Fitzgerald parties over the years that Penny knows the layout of the main house’s ground floor pretty well, finding herself in a hallway off the hall. It quiets immediately as she leaves the crowd, and makes her way past a living room full of older elves, their jewelry obnoxious and flashy. There’s an empty office at the next door, the dark wood imposing. The next door is ajar, and when Penny pushes it open to what she knows is another sitting room, she slams it back closed immediately. She really doesn’t need to see Austin making out with some blonde gnome in an attempt to get over whichever other blond he recently broke up with. 

Austin and Alex’s dating lives are no secret to anyone —they get around. Everyone in Laughlin’s upper echelon gets around, but Austin and Alex certainly get around the most. Penny’s overhead their conversations with her parents, about “finding someone nice and settling down,” and then the quieter conversations between her father and each of them about how “you can still have others on the side.” But Austin and Alex are young and successful, wealthy with money aside from inheritance, and neither of them seems too keen on “settling down.” Their independent (though definitely aided by their familiar connections) success is key to their short term relationships and make out sessions with —who was that?— children of Laughlin’s most revered.   
Penny doesn’t really understand it all. She’s eleven and at a party not meant for eleven year olds. The corridor turns into another hallway, and, giving up on trying to find some nice quiet room, Penny makes her way outside through a set of french doors.

In the back of the house now, Penny sees all the trees lit up with tiny yellow lights. It’s cold, but in Laughlin they’re lucky if it snows once, so it’s bearable, even in December. The grass squishes beneath her feet, and muffled sounds of inside slip into the quiet of the night. If she focuses, she can hear a cello bow sliding along its strings. There are a few people out here: pairs of young tieflings and dwarves and humans slipping into the estate grounds, some human hurling their guts into a bush, wait staff hurrying around in black clothing. No one pays Penny much mind.  
Beneath the lit-up trees, several hundred paces away, is a white gazebo. Penny steps through the grass towards it, looking up at the lights strung around its top. As she gets closer, she can see the wicker furniture: a couch and a couple chairs. 

Somehow, she doesn’t see the young elf sitting on the white wicker couch until she’s at the steps of the gazebo. And she can’t turn away now, for he’s seen her too and Penny is polite to the bone. 

He speaks first, “Hi.”

“Hello,” Penny says, “do you mind if I sit up here with you?”

“Oh, sure,” he looks really young, definitely under thirty. If he was human, he would probably be about Penny’s age, maybe a little older; he’s definitely her around her maturity level.

Penny steps into the gazebo, walking to the edge and looking out over the estate again; it really is pretty. Out in the distance, she can see where the lit up trees stop and where the grass of the estate gives way to forestry and a small pond.

“Sorry for bothering you, I’m Penny,” she introduces herself.

“It’s okay, Penny. I’m Geoffrey,” he holds out his hand to her when Penny turns to face him. Penny takes his hand and shakes it. It’s an action copied from their parents, but it makes them feel older. 

“Nice to meet you, Geoffrey, why are you out here?” Penny asks. 

“Loud in there,” he says, “and no one to talk to, really.”

“Yeah,” Penny says, sitting down on one of the chairs opposite Geoffrey’s couch.

The two sit out there for a while, talking about whatever eleven year olds talk about. Movies, their families, school, so on. Penny swings her legs in her chair, her hands folded under her thighs for warmth. Geoffrey got the easier end of the dress code, he’s warm under the sleeves of his dress shirt and jacket. 

Eventually it surfaces that both of them play flute. It makes sense: they had thought the other looked familiar. It’s not awkward, for childhood conversations rarely are. Both music nerds, they talk easily about their pieces, their flutes, their teachers, their shared hatred of flute recitals. Penny enjoys herself, despite the cold. 

When she’s thirsty, she excuses herself and leaves Geoffrey in the gazebo. As she makes her way across the grass beneath the glowing trees, she smiles slightly; she’s never talked to someone her age at one of these places before. 

/

Hours later, thoroughly exhausted and laying languidly on a couch in some now deserted seating room, Penny’s parents find her. 

“Penny! Dear, are you ready to head home, it’s late!” Her mother exclaims, it’s a bit slurred. Her father gripped her mother’s shoulders tightly as the woman wobbled on her heels. Penny had grown up around enough alcohol to know her mother was properly drunk.

Penny stood up and gratefully walked over to her parents, it had been incredibly dull after she left Geoffrey in the gazebo. Her father took her hand and led her back through the party and out the front door, nodding to one of the Fitzgeralds as they left, presumably her parents had already said their rounds of goodbyes. 

Penny’s father wasn’t as intoxicated as her mother, but still an elf staffing the party drove the three back to their house in one of the Fitzgeralds’ rented cars. All knew that Penny’s brothers wouldn’t return until tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest, and the family would collect their cars in the next few days. For now, as the car rolled up their driveway, all Penny could think of was sleep.


	2. "Outside Flute Recital"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the audience, Penny finds her parents. Her mother is obscured beneath a wide brimmed, woven straw hat. Elegantly dressed as always, her mother’s jewels flash in the sun. Next to her, her father’s face is bored beneath his sunglasses, he pulls a book out from beneath his seat and begins to read. Penny holds in a sigh, she knows her father only comes because her mother makes him. And she knows that in a few years —maybe even months— he will stop coming at all.

It turns out that most of the events Penny attends are hell. Penny’s twelve now, and Laughlin’s gentle spring is turning into a fiery summer. Not sure who thought an “outside flute recital” was a good idea, Penny is roasting as she shifts in the uncomfortable white plastic chairs. Snarkier and marginally more shrewd than just months ago at Midwinter, Penny thinks that the sun and plastic should not be allowed to interact.

Some Half-Orc finishes up their long, ambling piece and pauses on the stage. Penny pities their thick, dark clothes. She’s wearing a sleeveless pink dress, and as the sun beats down she gives a quiet thank you to all the melanin in her skin. The orc leaves the stage, and Penny politely applauds. 

She’s sitting to the side of the stage, with all the other performers and as the orc makes their way to their seat, Penny counts three people ahead of her.

“Nice work,” Penny says softly as the orc passes her. They nod.

In the audience, Penny finds her parents. Her mother is obscured beneath a wide brimmed, woven straw hat. Elegantly dressed as always, her mother’s jewels flash in the sun. Next to her, her father’s face is bored beneath his sunglasses, he pulls a book out from beneath his seat and begins to read. Penny holds in a sigh, she knows her father only comes because her mother makes him. And she knows that in a few years —maybe even months— he will stop coming at all.

Penny’s not thinking about the human playing on stage right now, instead she thinks of her brothers and her parents’ pride for them. How no matter how well she plays, they won’t look at her the same way they look at her brothers. Austin’s doing business in Neverwinter and Alex recently bought a second house in Privian, she rarely sees them anymore. Penny tries to think what they were like at twelve, knowing it’s not fair to compare herself to people a decade older than her. 

A flute shrieks and she’s dragged from her thoughts. Yikes. The boy on stage’s flute lets out a noise that could not have been intentional. The gnome next to her flinches. In the audience, Penny’s mother pulls on her sunglasses, despite her ridiculously large hat. 

The rest of the boy’s performance is excruciating. Who let this boy perform? An empathetic would remember that they, too, played unintentional shrieking notes sometimes, but Penny is not empathetic; she finds the kid rather pathetic.

It’s all her years of etiquette classes that have her clapping as he descends from the stage. Penny is not polite enough, though, to even think about complimenting the boy. Two more before she goes. She looks to the stage’s steps and starts when she sees the next player is Geoffrey.

Penny hasn’t seen the boy since their hour in the gazebo at the Fitzgeralds’ party, but so few people talk to her meaningfully at those things that she hasn’t forgotten him. She kind of wonders how she hadn’t noticed him before now, seeing as she’d been looking around out of boredom since this damned recital began. Oh well, she’s interesting to see how well he plays.

Geoffrey doesn’t look much different from the last —and only— time Penny saw him. His hair, brilliant blond, she realizes, reaches down to his shoulders, his pointed ears peeking out. His outfit is horrible, all clashing colors and textures, but his shoes are nice, so perhaps Penny’s parents would like him. Maybe she’ll introduce them after the show.

Geoffrey’s flute reflects the sunlight so much it’s painful to look at as he brings it to his lips. There’s the customary quiet all around before he begins to play his first note; everyone holding their breaths, involuntarily, Penny thinks. 

He’s not bad. He’s not great, either, but his piece is hard and he plays it well. The notes swell in the sweltering air and Penny shifts again in her chair. 

Geoffrey finishes his piece in a flurry of quick note changes and pauses on stage. As he walks down, Penny’s eyes follow him until he looks up at her, she flashes him a smile as he goes to sit in the row behind her. 

Some other elf walks onto stage and plays well, but Penny doesn’t notice because she’s next. In her head, she sinks into the notes of her music and feels the melody more than hears it in her head. 

When the elf descends to pleasant applause, Penny hears nothing but the slight rush in her ears and her pulse, pounding harder than it should. There’s no one new here, Penny knows she shouldn’t be nervous, but she always is. It takes more than twelve years and a life of relative ease to train the nerves away.

Lifting the flute to her lips, the sticky plastic chairs and well-dressed audience fades away into a blur. She can barely feel the sun as she starts to play.

Flute, to Penny, has always been an escape. Refuge is easy to find in the lilting melodies and the swell is easy to be caught up in, to ride away in. What Penny needs to be carried away from changes often, the minute to the impending-celestial doom. But recently, she realizes as she brings her flute down minutes later, she’s been escaping her parents. 

Seeking their faces in the audience, Penny’s disappointment at the hard look on her father’s face has to fight to stay internal. He’s clapping, but she knows it's out of social obligation and not because he’s proud. Her mother’s smiling, but because Penny’s her daughter and Austin and Alex were never very artistically inclined like she is. Penny thinks she’s smiling because she sees herself reflected in Penny on the stage, that’s she’s clapping at the parts of herself in Penny.

But Penny smiles and steps off the stage and she’s beginning to be able to name her smile and outward happiness as practiced. Her eyes rove over all the other flutists and they nod and smile, Geoffrey mouths a “nice job” and her smile is more real as she takes her seat again. 

For most of the rest of the recital Penny doesn’t focus on the flute players. There’s only two left, and she’s heard them both before, anyway. She thinks of her brothers, her family, the way this sunlight isn’t soft, the way the grass prickles up the side of her shoes. In the audience everyone’s shifting as thier anticipation for the ending grows. The audience applauds heavily for the dwarf who closes the show, and gives an ovation as all the flutists rise. 

Penny sighs, she’s dehydrated and it’s too bright and her dress is too fluorescent in this high afternoon sun. She wants to go home and jump into the pool or sit in the cool of the wine cellar, but she knows her parents have to make their rounds to everyone they know here and she’ll be stuck for at least another hour. 

The flutists around her turn to everyone and congratulate them before flitting into the audience. Penny shakes a couple hands. 

There’s a table in the back with drinks, and Penny finds her way over. She chugs the entire bottle of water the suited bartender hands her and sheepishly asks for another, hands gratefully wrapping around the sweating outsides of the bottle. 

Geoffrey finds her here, she nods at him, weary. 

“Hi Penny, nice playing,” he says, then turns to ask for a lemonade. Lemonade, Penny had forgotten all about the other drinks in her quest for hydration.

“Thanks, you too,” Penny replies, but really she’s eyeing Geoffrey’s lemonade.

“Your piece was super cool, it seemed really hard,” Geoffrey continues. 

“Oh, it wasn’t too bad. I always find that nothing’s that hard if you do it enough times,” Penny replies, but then she decides that sounds too arrogant, “I kind of go into autopilot when I perform, I guess everything just stops registering,” she adds.

“I get that,” he says, “I think when I play, everything just starts registering more.”

Penny thinks that doesn’t make sense, but she lets it go. 

“Hey, want to meet my parents?” she asks, partly because she doesn’t know how to lead a conversation and partly because she sees her parents and wants to leave.

Geoffrey smiles, “sure!”

Penny leads him over to her parents, who are standing at the edge of the crowd and quietly talking to each other. They look up and smile at Penny as she approaches, their gazes falling beyond her to Geoffrey; Penny’s not good enough at reading emotions, yet, to notice if her parents' faces change at all.

“Hi!” Penny says when she reaches them.

“Hey sweetheart, great job out there,” her mother says.

“Thanks. Mom, Dad, this is Geoffrey,” she gestures to Geoffrey, “I met him at the Fitzgeralds’ Midwinter party.”

Geoffrey extends his hand to them, Penny almost laughs as they shake it —it reminds her of the first time they met at the gazebo. 

“Nice to meet you, Geoffrey, you played well, too,” Penny’s mother says.

Geoffrey nods, “Nice to meet you too.” He excuses himself and says a quick goodbye to Penny.

Penny’s parents watch him as he goes into the crowd, finding his way to a couple of elves.

“Oh,” Penny’s father says, “he’s one of the Reynolds’ kids.”

“Bankers,” Penny’s mother supplies as an answer to Penny’s unasked question, “He seems nice.”

The Reynolds look over, Penny’s father nods once. Penny sighs, she knows where this is going.

“He is nice, now can we please go home?”

Penny’s mother laughs, “Sure, I hope you tell me all about your piece in the car.”

“Of course, mom.”

They make their way back to the car, and Penny knows that her parents will now find a reason to bring her to every single Reynolds function. Oh well, Geoffrey isn’t bad company.


	3. Luncheon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She hopes that the Browns keep this place unlocked, and breathes a sigh of relief as the door swings open. Inside is Penny’s personal heaven: lots and lots of pointy things begging to be flung at incredibly high speeds through the air.

Penny grows up a lot in the next year. She’s thirteen now, taller and stronger and sharper. She discovers the angsty poems of Bryan Stine, and Melonie Plutarch’s rambling odes to nature on her own. She’s dragged into art and she’s dragged into artful thought. For once, she feels as though she can look at the world in a way not dictated entirely by her family. 

Penny sees Geoffrey a lot, now. And while “a lot” in Penny’s world equates to once a month, the two get to know each other pretty well. Penny’s family is not close enough to Geoffrey’s mothers to casually have the family over for dinner, but there are luncheons and private concerts and dreadful, dreary poetry readings. At such events, the pair sit in the back and complain, or sneak out to the yards, to the kitchen to stuff themselves with food. 

It’s spring again, and the trees are flowered and everything is soft around the edges. Everyone’s in town for the parties and services of quickly approaching Wester. Actually, it kind of marks the one year anniversary of Penny making the rather unfortunate decision to introduce Geoffrey to her parents. She doesn’t remember what it was like for her brother’s when they were her age —she’d barely been born yet— but she knows it stopped. Maybe because it became clear Austin and Alex were more playboy material than high-school sweetheart material. Another part of her, the part that’s become pessimistic with age, thinks it’s because the second her parents knew Austin and Alex could be successful, they stopped trying to gently push them towards wealthy kids.

Penny never really sees her brothers anymore, they’re aging out of Laughlin’s young adult group. Neither of them primarily live in Laughlin anymore, anyway. Penny’s not even sure where they are half the time. When they’re home, for Midwinter or other holidays, like Wester, she hears them complaining of their human life cycles: “I wish I was an elf, they get to be young for so long.”  
Now, Penny is stuck in the back of Austin and Alex’s car to the Wester service; her parents wanted to drive in some new two-seater her father just bought. Her brothers have never made much of an effort to get to know Penny, and that’s fine. It’s just...a little awkward in the back. They don’t try to talk to her, but Penny knows their conversations would be very different if she wasn’t there. She rests her head against the window and sighs.

They eventually pull up to the Brown’s residence, already filled with glittering cars and glittering people. People mill in the driveway, but they all make their way around the house to where tables are dressed in pale linens under the blossoming trees. 

Her brothers pay her little mind as they park the car behind their parent’s and get out. Penny’s father’s customary “shall we?” has the five walking around the house. Her mother leans down and whispers into her ear about Penny’s choice of pink boots being ridiculous for the weather and walking on grass. Penny sighs; the boots are cool. 

The path on the side of the house opens onto the back lawn, where the grass is a bright springtime green and pastel lanterns hang from the trees. The tables are immaculately set, and fresh flowers spill from vases. 

Older now, Penny hates these things just as much, but she can hold more conversations with the older guests. The hatred has matured with her, though. A couple years ago, she hated these places because she had no one to talk to, because her parents treated her as some testament to their great parenting. But now, she hates the way her parents never talk about her and the feeling of her fake smile as she assures some old dwarf that she’s having no trouble finding someone nice to date. It’s….whatever, she guesses.

Though Geoffrey is present at a lot of these things, he doesn’t offer much refuge. There’s the crowd of elves and humans and dwarves around Penny and Geoffrey’s maturity, but they seem more caught up in catching early alcoholism than pondering their parents’ love for them on the outskirts of the party. Sometimes Geoffrey humors her, his mothers are really loving, but Penny appreciates how he tries to understand. But when he flits back to the young teenaged crowd, Penny privately thinks Geoffrey is going to end up with a nicotine addiction.

This luncheon plays out like every luncheon does: Penny’s parents make the rounds, Penny’s brothers have someone new on their arms as they pretend to play the adult game, Penny makes small talk and eventually finds some nice bench to sit on as she nurses iced tea, lemonade. It’s rather exhausting. 

When the lunch starts, Penny finds herself at a table with the budding alcoholics. They pay her little mind, so she watches her brothers instead, their short lived relationships are very amusing to Penny. 

Right now, Alex has some elf Penny has never seen before practically in his lap. The elf is very pretty, with short black hair and a whole lot of black piercings in his pointed ears; he seems like a carbon copy of at least four other people Alex’s been with —the man certainly has a type. Austin hasn’t sat down, and currently has yet another blond person hanging off of his arm. Actually, both of her brothers have types. Penny laughs as Austin tries to offer whoever he’s courting a sip of his drink, and the person’s utter confusion at the glass being waved in their face. 

Geforrey looks at Penny weird as she laughs, but he follows her line of sight and cracks a smile. Penny doesn’t talk the rest of the meal. It’s okay, she’s used to it. At least the food’s good. At one point the conversation shifts to money and Penny’s had enough so she leaves to go “take a walk.” 

Actually, Penny’s been learning archery and she remembers something about the Browns having a small range somewhere. She sets off to find it. It doesn’t actually take too long, out of sight of the party is a big patch of lang, the brightly colored targets at one end making it unmistakable. 

About forty yards away from the targets (Penny’s gotten oddly good at approximating distance) is a little building, presumably with equipment, unless they keep it in the house. Without really thinking, Penny starts to make her way over. Generally, she understands it’s not polite to be invited to someone’s property and then take and shoot their bows and arrows without permission, but her head is a bit too fuzzy with anger and resignation to register any of that. 

She hopes that the Browns keep this place unlocked, and breathes a sigh of relief as the door swings open. Inside is Penny’s personal heaven: lots and lots of pointy things begging to be flung at incredibly high speeds through the air. 

Penny thinks that the Browns must keep their nice bows elsewhere, otherwise she would be incredibly disappointed in this collection of thiers. She selects a moderately nice bow, nothing she thinks they would miss if she somehow managed to break it and straps on a quiver with some decent arrows. 

Before exiting the little space, she peeks around to make sure she’s still alone in this little part of the estate. To be honest, she doesn’t know what she would do if someone found her. Probably run, or hide, or smile a horribly fake smile and ramble on and on about she’s a poor girl who got lost. 

It seems to register that she’s about to arch in heeled boots and a frilly dress as she’s stringing the bow and she momentarily wonders if she should get one with a lighter draw weight. Oh well, if the dress rips, it wouldn’t be the first time. Plus, she needs to let out some steam, and the strain in her arms would be a welcome pain. 

The bow Penny selected doesn’t have any sights, but like with the heavy draw weight, she thinks the challenge will be a welcome distraction.

Knocking her first arrow, Penny’s boots shuffle to find purchase on the ground. Raising the bow, Penny’s mind settles into a calm only beaten by her flute-playing. She squints at the targets, barely able to make out the center from this distance —curses herself for picking a bow with no sights—and pulls back the string. 

She may have slightly overestimated how much she’d been able to pull, and it takes a lot of effort to get her hand set up on her cheek. Penny breathes in. Exhales as she lets the arrow fly, her follow through comes naturally. The bow swings down on her fingers and Penny’s pleased to see the arrow embedded deep in the target near the bullseye. Not good enough, though.

Penny notches another arrow. It hits almost dead center. And so does the next one. And the next. Eventually she realizes she should move onto another target before she breaks one of the Brown’s arrows. 

When her quiver’s empty, Penny puts the bow back inside the building and goes to retrieve her arrows. She feels a bit ridiculous in her dress and boots, but her head feels better and her arm aches nicely. She chides herself for forgetting an arm guard, though, as her forearms a little pink from a few shots not set up properly. 

The arrows are embedded deep, and Penny has to go back to the little building to try and find a tool to help dig out the arrows. Eventually, though, Penny has all the arrows collected and back in the building. No one has to know. 

Penny leaves to make her way back to the luncheon, realizing it’s probably wrapping up. As she turns though, she freezes. There, between her and the luncheon is Geoffrey, just standing there. He looks awed, if Penny wants to flatter herself. 

He’s too far away to hear anything Penny says, so she just smiles sheepishly and walks towards him. 

When she gets there, he’s still just standing with the same expression and whispers a breathy “whoa.”

Penny laughs and holds her index finger to her lips, “Don’t tell the Browns I borrowed their bow.”

They walk back and Penny feels remarkably better, Geoffrey doesn’t seem to know how to speak. Penny’s grateful for the silence.

As the gathering comes back into view, Penny suddenly remembers what her parents are thinking in regards to her and Geoffrey but not wanting to be rude, lets him lead them back to their group. Penny is probably imaging the feeling of her mother’s eyes on her back, she does not look back. 

Later, as the Banerjees stand around their cars ready to leave, Penny’s mother will ask Penny how Geoffrey is. Penny will sigh and roll her eyes, and they’ll drive away.


	4. Year's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She changes into a fluorescent pink jumpsuit that her mother would cry “clashes horribly with her skin tone,” but that makes Penny happy. As always, her pink boots stay on. She chopped off her hair recently, and it hangs black and shaggy just above her shoulders. In the mirror of the music hall’s basement, Penny thinks she looks pretty good. She goes up to meet her family and ride to the Brown’s house.

The Year’s End symphony is probably Penny’s favourite event. As much as she finds half of Laughlin’s upper class unbearable, there’s something nice about fitting them all inside an elegant music hall surrounded by some of Ferndale’s best young musicians. In fact, it’s probably been her favourite since before she played in it. When she was younger and sitting in the audience, she would become lost in the music as if it were her who were playing. And, Penny can hardly pass up an opportunity to dress up.

This year she’s clad in all black like the rest of the players but she takes pride in her dress —it took a lot of effort to play her way into the Year’s End symphony. Even if she can’t wear her customary pink, she figures, it’s worth it. Also, all her black clothes are lined with pink and she fought with the director until they let her wear her pink boots: “They’ll be practically hidden! They’re basically my lucky object! I don’t know if I could play well without them.”

Secretly, Penny also likes Year’s End because it means her father and brothers are practically forced to come watch her play. Well, she knows they don’t really come because of her, but it’s still nice to know that they have to see her and at least pretend to be proud. Recently, her parent’s lack of pride has become more and more unbearable as Penny’s accomplishments stack up —acclaimed flutist, first chair at Year’s End, published poet, minorly recognized archer, etc— but Penny pushes that down, down, down. She chugs an entire bottle of water, having learned that dealing with big thoughts before playing doesn’t always work out well. But, she’s only fourteen, almost fifteen...how is she supposed to have lived up to her brothers already? They have over a decade’s head start.

Penny boxes the thoughts away and wraps them up nicely to deal with later, to shoot into targets at midnight, and composes herself for her performance. A couple of the other players come and wish her look, she nods at them graciously. 

The call comes and she rises with the rest of the room, grabbing one last sip of water. They make their way out, a very musically talented funeral procession. 

The lights are blinding, when Penny steps into the hall, and it makes her feel alive. It’s weird, too, knowing the audience can see you but you can’t see them. Penny doesn't pay that thought much mind, though, she’s already slipping into her flute tunnel vision. It also —and Penny would hardly fully admit this to herself— prevents her from seeing her family. 

All falls away as the players take their seats. Penny only hears the music and sees the notes fly through her head for the next hour. Her flute sings. 

At intermission Penny chugs even more water as she talks lightly with a couple clarinets. The second part of the symphony is shorter, and passes in a blur. Penny’s practically perfect, and even in her music haze, she knows it. 

They receive a standing ovation, and as the lights dim, Penny sees her family standing and clapping along with the rest, smiling. It means more than it should to Penny, she thinks. On the other side of the audience, she sees Geoffrey, his mothers, and the rest of the Reynolds, they’re all smiling, Geoffrey the widest. 

In the depths of the hall, Penny and the other musicians yell and congratulate each other, their final performance of the year over and done with. They change out of their black clothes, some into street clothes to go home to their families, but some into dress clothes for early Year’s End parties. The holiday itself isn’t for a few days, but Laughlin socialites are merciless. Unfortunately for Penny, her mother is quite the Laughlin socialite. 

She changes into a fluorescent pink jumpsuit that her mother would cry “clashes horribly with her skin tone,” but that makes Penny happy. As always, her pink boots stay on. She chopped off her hair recently, and it hangs black and shaggy just above her shoulders. In the mirror of the music hall’s basement, Penny thinks she looks pretty good. She goes up to meet her family and ride to the Brown’s house. 

On the ride over, Penny’s in a car with her parents and her mother praises Penny’s playing, saying nothing could’ve sounded better. Her father nods his assent. The conversation turns away from Penny and she doesn't mind, content to be in her head. Tonight will be a fine celebration, short, too, considering it’s not the actual holiday. Contrary to Laughlin’s customary high society practices, actual day-of Year’s End celebrations are normally just small, family affairs. 

Penny prepares to soak in the compliments on her playing. Preparation is, in fact, required, Penny has learned, because many people’s idea of praise is actually backhanded compliments. Penny doesn’t really mind, though. It doesn’t really register.

They pull up and are swept into the Brown’s foyer and lead to the living room. The gathering’s small, and people lounge on the couches, mill in the adjacent rooms. The dining room is set, and everything shimmers with gold decorations. It’s warm and bubbly and why Penny likes Year’s End so much. 

Here, Penny is a highlighter in her jumpsuit and people make their way over to compliment her. The compliments are nice and genuine, and Penny appreciates people’s comments on the piece as well as their thoughts of her playing. 

One of the Browns offer Penny a glass of champagne in celebration, but she refuses, going instead for the plate of tiny quiches behind him. The time before dinner passes rather quickly, Penny knows everyone here and when they’re sitting down to eat, Penny finds herself next to Geoffrey, he smiles. 

“You played really well,” Geoffrey says between bites. 

“Thanks, Geoffrey, I hope you can play next year, too!”

“I would love nothing more than to be your second chair, Penny,” Geoffrey says.

Penny considers this, “And as first chair, I would also love you as you as a second,” she says. They both know Penny’s a better flutist. Geoffrey’s good at other things, like being loved by his parents. Penny hides her grimace.

As dessert finishes up Geoffrey leans over, “Hey, want to take a walk?”

Penny’s surprised, but grateful because even though she’s rather enjoying herself, she knows Geoffrey is trying to give her an out, “Sure, give me a couple more moments.” He nods, small smile.  
When Penny’s finished her dessert, the two make their way out of the dining room and outside. Penny ignores her parents’ looks. 

Outside, it’s cold, and Penny’s surprised when Geoffrey offers her his arm. She laughs softly and takes in, leaning into his warmth.

“Where too, Geoffrey Reynold?” she asks.

“Why, anywhere, Penny Banerjee,” he jokes back. There’s a pause, “Well, I was actually hoping to see you arch again?”

“It’s dark!” Penny says.

“Oh,” Geoffrey says like he hadn’t realized you need to be able to see to shoot well.

Penny tries to save him, “we could walk to the range anyway, though. Maybe they miraculously put up lights since we were here years ago.”

“Let’s go!”

They walk, talking of everything that’s nothing. It’s how most of her conversations with Geoffrey go: they convey the big stuff in subtext, and it’s okay if the other doesn’t get it. Penny likes the quiet comfort of knowing Geoffrey holds some of her biggest pieces like they’re small. Like they matter, but don’t make her. Maybe that’s weird. It feels easy and surface level, her friendship with Geoffrey, but they both know it goes rather deep. 

There are no lights when they reach the pitch, Penny sighs. 

“Well, should we go back?” she says. They’re just standing in the grass, Penny pushing close to Geoffrey’s warmth, cursing herself for choosing this sleeveless jumpsuit. 

“Penny?”

“Yes?”

“Are you cold?”

“Geoffrey,” Penny steps back, “what do you think? I’m literally huddling to you for warmth.”

Geoffrey smiles and scratches the back of his neck, “Penny, do you want my jacket?”

Penny’s surprised, “Really?” He nods, “thank you.”

It’s kind of awkward as Geoffrey takes off his jacket and drapes it over Penny’s shoulders; they’re about the same height. Penny’s grateful for the immediate warmth of the jacket.

Geoffrey swears, “It’s cold.”

“Yes,” Penny laughs, “do you want your jacket back?”

He immediately shakes his head, “no it's okay.”

The silence starts. And lapses. And lapses. Penny looks at Geoffrey in the moon’s quiet light. Geoffrey looks right back at Penny. Penny’s gaze drops down, just for a moment, but it’s enough.

“Want to kiss?” Geoffrey breaths into the air between them. 

Yeah, Penny thinks, but she doesn’t say anything. The silence spans again.

He steps back, “I—I’m sorry Penny, I know we’ve never, you know...been like that…”

“No,” Penny says, “it’s not that. It’s just...I’ve never—”

“Me neither,” 

“I think I want to, though.”

“Yeah me too.”

Geoffrey puts his hand on Penny’s cold cheek, “Okay?” he asks. Penny nods, leaning into the warmth of his touch. 

Penny puts her arms awkwardly over Geoffrey’s shoulders, “Okay,” she says.

They both lean in and it’s closed and chaste and gentle and short. Geoffrey pulls back, “Okay?”

Penny breathes, she doesn’t quite know how she feels —it wasn’t really a real kiss, anyway. She nods, leaning in again.

This time it’s longer and their lips open awkwardly against each other. Penny’s not ready for how wet it is, their lips slide around and they both pull apart at the same time, early, probably. 

/

“Um,” Penny says.

“That was weird,” Geoffrey says. 

“Yeah,” Penny agrees.

There’s a pause. Penny realizes they’re still pressed pretty close together, he’s too warm to even consider stepping away from.

“Do you…” Geoffrey starts, “do you feel, like, anything?”

Penny thinks for a second, trying to find a single shred of feeling, or longing, or something, but she comes up empty handed, “No,”

“Me neither.”

“I’m sorry, Geoffrey,” she says. She doesn’t quite know why she says it, it just feels like she should. 

“What?” Geoffrey sounds confused, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Okay.”

“At least we know what it’s not supposed to be like, right?” He says.

“Yeah,” Penny laughs softly, “is it okay that I’m basically hugging you?”

“Yeah, plus I need the warmth.”

“Oh, do you want your jacket back? Was that meant to be a romantic gesture?”

He laughs loudly, “No it’s okay, Penny.”

There’s a pause.

“Is it weird that we’re just here...hugging?”

“Maybe,” Penny says, “My parents think we’re dating, or, at least they think we will be at some point.”

“I know, I think my moms are more wary. I think they’re somewhat convinced I only like guys.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

/

They walk back, and Penny gives Geoffrey back his jacket and they walk inside. It’s all surprisingly un-weird. Penny’s not sure how to feel about it. She’ll unpack it all later tonight. Maybe in the Banerjee’s lit archery range. But, for now, she enjoys the warmth of the fire in the Browns’ living room.


End file.
